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amount of content that was possible for a child, and greatly abridged the material.

taught by con

games.

methods in

The most striking characteristic of the school, however, was its recognition of child interests and the consequently improved methods. Languages were taught by Languages speaking and then by reading, and grammar was not versation and brought in until late in the course. Facility in Latin was acquired through conversation, games, pictures, drawing, acting plays, and reading on practical and interesting subjects (Fig. 26). His instruction in arithmetic, geometry, Progressive geography, physics, nature study, and history was fully other subjects. as progressive as that in languages, and, while continuing Rousseau's suggestions, seems to anticipate much of the 'object teaching' of Pestalozzi. Arithmetic was taught by mental methods, geometry by drawing figures accurately and neatly, and geography by beginning with one's home and extending out into the neighborhood, the town, the country, and the continent.

tations.

Influence of the Philanthropinum.-The attendance at the Philanthropinum was very small in the beginning, since the institution was regarded as an experiment, but eventually the number of pupils rose to more than fifty. Most visitors were greatly pleased with the school, Great expecespecially on account of the interested and alert appearance of the pupils. Kant declared that it meant "not a slow reform, but a quick revolution," although afterward he admitted that he had been too optimistic. While it may not have served well for older pupils, it was certainly excellent in its stimulus to children under ten or Stimulus for twelve, who can be reached by appeals to physical pupils. activities and the senses better than by books.

Basedow, however, proved temperamentally unfit to

younger

Similar insti- direct the institution. Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746

tutions of

Campe,

Salzmann,

1818), who first succeeded him, withdrew within a year to found a similar school at Hamburg. Institutions of the same type sprang up elsewhere, and some of them had a large influence upon education. The most striking and enduring of these schools was that established in 1784 by Christian Gotthilf Salzmann (1744-1811) at Schnepfenthal under the patronage of the royal family of SaxeGotha. The natural surroundings-mountains, valleys, lakes were most favorable for the purpose of the institution, and much attention was given to nature study, 'lessons on things,' organized excursions, gardening, agricultural work, and care of domestic animals. Manual training, gymnastics, sports, informal moral and religious culture, and other features that anticipated later developments in education also formed part of the course. During the decade before the establishment of Salzmann's school, institutions embodying many of Basedow's ideas were also opened at Rechahn and his other and Rochow. Brandenburg estates by Baron Eberhard von Rochow (1734-1805). His schools were simply intended to improve the peasantry in their methods of farming and living, but, when this step toward universal education proved extraordinarily successful, Rochow advocated the adoption of a complete national system of schools on a nonsectarian basis.

In 1793 the Philanthropinum at Dessau was closed permanently. Its teachers were scattered through Europe, and gave a great impulse to the new education. Becomes a fad, An unfortunate result of this popularity was that the Philanthropinum became a fad, and schools with this name were opened everywhere in Germany by educa

but accomplished some good.

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tional mountebanks. These teachers prostituted the system to their own ends, degraded the profession into a mere trade, and became the subject of much satire and ridicule. Nevertheless, the philanthropinic movement seems not to have been without good results, especially when we consider the educational conditions and the pedagogy of the times. It introduced many new ideas concerning methods and industrial training into all parts of France and Switzerland, as well as Germany, and these were carefully worked out by such reformers as Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Herbart. In this way there were embodied in education the first positive results of Rousseau's 'naturalism.'

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. II; and Great Educators (Macmillan, 1912), chaps. VII and VIII; Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), chap. X; Parker, S. C., History of Modern Elementary Education (Ginn, 1912), chaps. VIII-X. The Emile (Translated by Payne; Appleton, 1895) should be read, and the Elementarwerk (Wiegandt, Leipzig, 1909) should be examined. A judicial description of the life and work of Rousseau is that by Morley, J. (Macmillan), while Davidson, T., furnishes an interesting interpretation of Rousseau and Education from Nature (Scribner, 1902), but the standard treatise on The Educational Theory of Rousseau (Longmans, Green, 1911) at present has been written by Boyd, W. A good brief account of Basedow: His Educational Work and Principles (Kellogg, New York, 1891) is afforded by Lang, O. H. See also Barnard, H., American Journal of Education, vol. V, pp. 487–520.

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